Bryce skies cannot even touch properly made Vue spectral skies. Sorry but ti's true.
oddly enough I'm not much of a landscape artist even though I've used Bryc eand Vue for ages, lol, but honestly, check out the difference between even "volumetric" and "spectral" skies, it's night and day.

This pic I did a couple of years ago when Spectral skies 1st came out in Vue
http://www.silverblades-suitcase.com/vue2007/wyverns_twilight3.jpg

The new spectral 3 skies are almost photoreal (though as always, skill/luck is important)

And as for render times, um, radiosity  with adaptive bucket rendering (iirc), no WAY can Bryce touch Vue for render speed. Vue was faster than Bryce when I first got it, but it's a HELL of a lot faster now.
Go look at my gallery, my 1680x1050 renders take about 2 to 4 hours to render on a 1year old quad core intel.

Enjoy whatever app you like, folks :) but technology wise, Vue stomps Bryce flat, sorry :/

To get the best from either app, you need ot understand them and optimize them.
Simple one for Vue is to reduce Sun shadows to about 85%, and add 0.5 to 2 degreess of softness (in the Sun object property editor), set light and ambient balance to 95% Sunlight (in atmosphere editor) as general rules for outdoor work.
For render optimization, see my tutorial on same.

:)

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